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Beware the Elites Who Want to Change the World.

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2018 //
30

This is an unusually good opinion piece that appeared in the New York Times a few days ago.

Think Gates, Zuckerberg, Walton, Hastings, Koch, and many more who use their wealth to impose their ideas on what they consider lesser lives.

The author is Anand Giridharadas.

Please note the mention of charter schools, a bone used by the elites to distract us from wealth inequality and the necessity of providing a better education for all.

It begins:

“Change the world” has long been the cry of the oppressed. But in recent years world-changing has been co-opted by the rich and the powerful.

“Change the world. Improve lives. Invent something new,” McKinsey & Company’s recruiting materials say. “Sit back, relax, and change the world,” tweets the World Economic Forum, host of the Davos conference. “Let’s raise the capital that builds the things that change the world,” a Morgan Stanley ad says. Walmart, recruiting a software engineer, seeks an “eagerness to change the world.” Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook says, “The best thing to do now, if you want to change the world, is to start a company.”

“At first, you think: Rich people making a difference — so generous! Until you consider that America might not be in the fix it’s in had we not fallen for the kind of change these winners have been selling: fake change.

“Fake change isn’t evil; it’s milquetoast. It is change the powerful can tolerate. It’s the shoes or socks or tote bag you bought which promised to change the world. It’s that one awesome charter school — not equally funded public schools for all. It is Lean In Circles to empower women — not universal preschool. It is impact investing — not the closing of the carried-interest loophole.

“Of course, world-changing initiatives funded by the winners of market capitalism do heal the sick, enrich the poor and save lives. But even as they give back, American elites generally seek to maintain the system that causes many of the problems they try to fix — and their helpfulness is part of how they pull it off. Thus their do-gooding is an accomplice to greater, if more invisible, harm.

“What their “change” leaves undisturbed is our winners-take-all economy, which siphons the gains from progress upward. The average pretax income of America’s top 1 percent has more than tripled since 1980, and that of the top 0.001 percent has risen more than sevenfold, even as the average income of the bottom half of Americans stagnated around $16,000, adjusted for inflation, according to a paper by the economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

“American elites are monopolizing progress, and monopolies can be broken. Aggressive policies to protect workers, redistribute income, and make education and health affordable would bring real change. But such measures could also prove expensive for the winners. Which gives them a strong interest in convincing the public that they can help out within the system that so benefits the winners.”

There is more, if it is not behind a paywall.

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Equity, Fake, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Hypocrisy, Inequality, Koch Brothers, Philanthropy, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Rick Hess: How Philanthropies Promote Toxic Groupthink

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2018 //
17

Rick Hess of the conservative American Enterprise Institute reflects on the tendency of foundations to act like lemmings, blindly following the lead of the largest foundation Gates), even if it means jumping off a cliff, harming public schools, destroying the careers of teachers, and hurting children.

He was moved to think about this by the recent RAND report about the complete failure of Gates’ funding of test-based accountability of teachers. Who, other than teachers and their unions, the American Statistical Association, AERA, and the National Academy of zeducation, said this was a terrible idea?no foundation stepped off the bandwagon, nor did the U.S. Department of Education.

Hess writes:

“Most foundation staff spend a lot of time talking to people they fund, people they might fund, or people trying to woo them. They spend every day talking about their vision and mission, how to refine it, and how to execute it, and they do this mostly with people who want their money. Given all that, it’s easy to wind up in a self-assured, mission-driven bubble. After enough of this, almost any unsolicited critique can seem misinformed, unfair, and as proof that the critic “just doesn’t get it.”

Since Rick’s organization relies on philanthropy (the DeVos family funds AEI), his willingness to offer a critical view is gratifying.

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Philanthropy

Nancy Bailey: What is Bill Gates’ End Game for Teachers and Schools?

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2018 //
19

Nancy Bailey reviews the latest failure of Bill Gates in his efforts to reinvent public education.

This is just the latest in a long series of failures for Gates.

She asks, what is he really aiming for?

It is not to make schools better, but to make them unnecessary. The goal: using technology to tailor education to each child.

“All of this will lead to:

-No more teachers.
-No more public schools.
-Students using technology anyplace, anytime.
-Technology in charter schools.
-Continuous online assessment.
-No more privacy rules.
-Connecting children with workforce needs.

His acumen is to put down the seed money and get you to pay for his next experiment.

No accountability for him as he wrecks your schools with his latest brainstorm.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Philanthropy, Teacher Evaluations, Technology

LeBron James Is Creating a Model Public School, NOT a Charter School, in Akron, Ohio

By dianeravitch
July 6, 2018 //
23

You may have heard that the superstar basketball player signed a contract with the Los Angeles Lakers for four years for $153 Million.

James has an active foundation in his hometown, Akron, Ohio. He is funding a model school in collaboration with the Akron public schools. It will NOT be a charter school.

“The Akron native and NBA superstar created the foundation in 2004 and it has since grown from the basics — giving new bicycles to children — to an organization that will be opening its own school at the end of the month. All the while, its mission has been to help Akron’s most at-risk students reach academic success.

“The next time the world will hear from James will be on Monday, July 30, Campbell said. That’s when he’ll be in Akron at the opening of I PROMISE School, a joint project between the foundation and the Akron Public Schools system. The school on West Market Street in Akron will welcome more than 240 third- and fourth-graders in an academic setting that will emphasize a STEM curriculum and a hands-on approach. The school also will offer wraparound services to students’ families. The goal is that by 2022 the school will house students in first through eighth grade.”

Thank you, LeBron, for giving back instead of using your wealth to harm the public schools that helped you.

The foundation’s I PROMISE network works with Akron students in several ways to help them stay in school. Those complete the program through graduation will receive scholarships to the University of Akron.

Categories Philanthropy

Who Won the MacArthur Foundation’s $100 Million Prize?

By dianeravitch
December 20, 2017 //
33

Read the press release.

$100 million smackeroos.

https://www.macfound.org/press/press-releases/sesame-workshop-and-international-rescue-committee-awarded-100-million-early-childhood-education-syrian-refugees/

Categories International, Philanthropy

Emily Talmage Lashes Out–at Me

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2017 //
119

I have admired Emily Talmage’s fierce independence and intelligence and have posted many of her columns. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that she attacked me because I was a judge on the MacArthur Foundation’ s competition to award a $100 million gift.

She was astonished that I had anything to do with this dreadful Foundation.

She invited me to respond.

This was my comment on her blog:

“Emily,

“I was invited some months ago by the MacArthur Foundation to be one of hundreds of reviewers for their $100 million contest for a single great idea. The foundation received 2,000 applications. I reviewed 10. A few were not very good ideas. Some were very impressive. They were submitted by well qualified teams of experts with sound ideas about alleviating hunger, poverty, disease, and other major problems, in this country and in impoverished countries. None of the ideas I approved were profit-making ventures.

“I was not paid for doing this. It was an interesting assignment, to which I devoted a few hours one evening.

“I was not asked to review the MacArthur Foundation. In my extensive readings of nefarious organizations, I don’t recall coming across the MacArthur Foundation as a funder. Had I been asked to do a similar assignment for the Walton Foundation or the Broad Foundation or the CZI or the Gates Foundation, I would have said no.

“I know the MacArthur Foundation only for its “genius” awards, which I have never seen as controversial.

“I make no apologies for judging 10 of 2,000 proposals.

“You can reach any conclusion you wish.

“I am not your enemy. You have read my blog. You know where I stand on testing, privatization, and CBE. Frankly, I was surprised that you would write as if I were not on your side. News flash: I am your ally.”

Diane Ravitch

Categories Accountability, Philanthropy, Ravitch, Diane

Emily Talmadge: Be Like Lisa

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2017 //
22

Emily Talmadge salutes Lisa Haver, who wrote an article in a Philadelphia newspaper asking why the billionaires who play with public schools are never held accountable. She recommends that all of us should “be like Lisa,” speak up, stand up, demand that billionaires keep their hands off our public schools with their half-baked ideas.

Emily has the advantage of having gone to school with Mark Zuckerberg. Maybe she can answer a question that has bothered me whenever I see a picture of him. Does he own any shirts that are not solid color T-shirts? Is he pretending to be Steve Jobs? Does he own a shirt with buttons? Has he ever worn a tie? None of these are necessary, but I imagine him at a black-tie dinner wearing a T-shirt. Just because he is richer than everyone else.

Anyway…

Emily writes:

Sixteen years ago, Mark Zuckerberg and I sat across from each other in Latin class at Phillips Exeter Academy.

A few years after Exeter, I began teaching public school.

Mark, meanwhile, invented Facebook and became a billionaire.

Now, the one who never worked a day in his life in a public school (Mark) is crusading nationwide to “remake” public schools.

Without bothering to hear from those who actually work in those schools (I wrote Mark an open letter a couple of years ago that was picked up by a number of popular media outlets, but never heard back), Mark and his wife are striving to build a public school system that in no way resembles the intimate, discussion-based, mostly tech-free education (with no more than twelve students per class) that we got at Exeter.

Chan and Zuckerberg – along with a long list of other billionaires like Reed Hastings, Laurene Powell Jobs, Eli Broad, and the Waltons – are currently pushing an education agenda that puts an electronic device at the hands of each student, tracking their every move with “personalized learning plans” that will warn you in big red letters if at any time you fall off-track and aren’t meeting the standards as you should be.

There’s a giant profit motive behind this frighteningly technocratic vision, and anyone who cares about public schools should be fighting tooth and nail against it.

Unfortunately, based on the speed at which schools are adopting Mark’s “Summit Personalized Learning” program and the amount of money his LLC is throwing at public policy initiatives, Mark and his billionaire buddies are currently winning this war.

Most of the billionaires who want to reshape education want to make it completely reliant on technology, even though they don’t send their own children to schools like that. They prefer the kind where an experienced teacher sits at a seminar table with a dozen students and discusses what they are learning. The Waltons are different; they are not in the tech sector. They want to bust unions, and they have found that funding charters is the best way to achieve that goal.

Be like Lisa, she writes. Blow the whistle. Call foul. Speak up. Now.

Categories For-Profit, Philanthropy, Technology

This is What Real Philanthropy Looks Like

By dianeravitch
September 19, 2017 //
47

We know what fake philanthropy looks like. It looks like the Broad Foundation, training inexperienced superintendents to shut down public schools and turn them over to private entrepreneurs. It looks like the Gates Foundation, foisting one bad idea after another on schools, like Common Core and test-based evaluation of teachers.

This is what real philanthropy looks like.

After years of handing out massive grants to talented individuals (the so-called “genius awards”), the McArthur Foundation decided to have a competition for a single grant of $100 million. The proposal had to be ambitious but within reach. It had to be a project that solved a very important problem. It had to be supported by a team of competent people and organizations.

I was one of many judges. I was very impressed by the applications I reviewed.

The link contains the names of the four finalists. Their ambitions are large and impressive. They aim to help large numbers of people and improve the quality of their lives. They don’t impose their agenda on anyone. They want to solve basic problems in the world.

Bill Gates, Eli Broad, John Arnold, Walton family, Helmsley Foundation, Fisher Family, Reed Hastings: take note. Do good. Leave your ego behind Don’t impose your ideas on others without their consent. Don’t engineer other people’s lives. Solve problems of human existence.

Categories Philanthropy

A Different Kind of Philanthropist, Now Forgotten

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2017 //
3

This is a review of a biography of Julius Rosenwald, a man who became very wealthy and used his money to help others. His most notable contribution was the building of thousands of schools for African American children in the South. Without the Rosenwald schools, these children would have had no schooling at all.

The review, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal, was written by Leslie Lenkowsky, an emeritus professor at Indiana University. The title of the book is A Catalog Of Generosity: Julius Rosenwald: Repairing the World

At the beginning of the 20th century, three figures dominated the rapidly expanding world of American philanthropy. Two—Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller—are still remembered, mostly because of the foundations they established. But the third—Julius Rosenwald—is largely forgotten. No foundations, and few buildings, bear his name. If his approach to giving was more modest in spirit, it was no less influential and effective in its day.

That Rosenwald became one of the leading philanthropists of his era is itself a remarkable story. As Hasia R. Diner tells us in “Julius Rosenwald: Repairing the World,” a volume in Yale’s Jewish Lives series, he was the son of an immigrant peddler who arrived in Baltimore in the middle of the 19th century and eventually wound up in Springfield, Ill., running a clothing store. In 1879, the 17year-old JR (as he was known) went to New York to learn the garment business from his relatives. Soon enough, he made connections with other ambitious young men, such as the future financiers Henry Morgenthau and Henry Goldman. After returning to the Midwest and starting his own clothing store in Chicago, Rosenwald invested in a catalog sales company that needed capital: Sears, Roebuck. He gradually became more involved in the business and, when co-founder Richard Sears resigned in 1908, took over its leadership. An initial public offering two years earlier (underwritten by Henry Goldman in his first IPO) had not only provided resources for the company’s growth but had also made JR a wealthy man…

The most striking part of Rosenwald’s philanthropy may well be his funding of African-American education in the South. Influenced by Booker T. Washington, he developed a program to construct elementary and secondary schools in any black community that wanted such support. Over a 20-year period, nearly 5,000 schools opened. “One 1930s estimate,” Ms. Diner writes, “concluded that 89 percent of all buildings in which Mississippi’s black youngsters received schooling” were “Rosenwald schools.” He also used his gifts to induce more assistance for black education from public-school officials in the stillsegregated region. Ms. Diner attributes much of Rosenwald’s generosity to his sense of Jewishness at a time when Jews were often discriminated against as outsiders. Although he was not a particularly devout man, Rosenwald’s philanthropy reflected his understanding of Jewish history and traditions, as well as his close association with Emil G. Hirsch, a leading Reform rabbi in Chicago (and a political Progressive). Rosenwald, Ms. Diner writes, saw his giving as a means of refuting popular impressions of Jewish selfishness and particularism…

For both Jewish immigrants in the slums of Chicago and black sharecroppers in the rural South, Rosenwald’s philanthropy sought to promote practical efforts at self-improvement, not ambitious plans for social change. This approach made his gifts relatively uncontroversial, despite their magnitude. (Compared with today’s arguments over the funding of charter schools, the “Rosenwald schools” generated little political backlash.) But, as Ms. Diner notes, it also left his philanthropy vulnerable to accusations of timidity, a reluctance to take on the entrenched political and legal restrictions underlying the problems that Jews and African-Americans faced…

Rosenwald’s modesty lay behind his insistence on closing his foundation after his death and his opposition to attaching his name to projects. Perhaps his near-obscurity is one reason why many contemporary philanthropists, like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, are more likely to pursue bold goals, like eradicating the world’s deadliest diseases. But others may be considering a different path. Last summer, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos announced that he intended to become more philanthropic and asked for suggestions about how to help people in the “here and now.” The founder of today’s version of Sears, Roebuck could hardly do better than to peruse Ms. Diner’s biographical portrait and study Julius Rosenwald’s noble example.

Categories Education Reform, Philanthropy
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